New HD and partition layout question

[unlord213]

I currently have a Seagate Barracuda 40GB 7200RPM 8.5ms IDE that i use for my system files, Western Digital 180GB 7200RPM, 8.9ms IDE that i use for data. I am going to be getting a Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10000RPM 4.5ms serial ATA, and will switch that for my Seagate drive, and put my OS on it. I have never really looked into how to arrange partitions, and from looking around the net, I have gathered that I should have 1 partitions for the swap files, 1 partition for the temp files, and 1 partition for the rest of my OS and programs. Since the storage drive is going to be alot slower, which drive should the swap file be on for best performance. Also, I have read that some people put their OS on one partition, and make another partition for games and such. Is that a better way to go to get the best performance?

Thanks for the help,
Unlord213

 

[airfoil]

Put the OS on the Raptor, on a single partition. Adding partitions on the Raptor will only slow things down some.

Set the page file to run off the a partition on the WD180.

Temp files do not need a partition - just clean them up every fortnight and follow it up with a defragment.

 

[unlord213]

Could the temp files go on the same partition as the page file, or would that slow it down?

 

[Pariah]

Always put your page file on your fastest drive, usually the one with your OS on it, unless your second drive is equally fast, or just minimally slower.

Not sure what you mean by temp files. Temp files for what?

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Always put your page file on your fastest drive, usually the one with your OS on it,

Microsoft disagrees with you.
http://support.microsoft.com/d...x?scid=kb;en-us;314482

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: unlord213
Could the temp files go on the same partition as the page file, or would that slow it down?

If you have two hard drives, the best place for the main pagefile is on the second hard drive on a dedicated partition (no file on the partition but pagefile).

 

[Pariah]

That's assuming similarly performing drives. When comparing drives of significantly different in performance, it is smarter to put it on the faster drive regardless of whether it is the boot drive or not. When comparing a Raptor to any other ATA drive, your best bet is to leave the pagefile on the Raptor.

 

[unlord213]

By temp files, I meant the windows temp files, I thought it was a good idea to have those on a different partition. Also, ifIi should leave the page file on the same partition as the OS, or make a new one?

 

[Navid]

Frequently, clean out all the temp folders. You don't need to move them to another partition.

For the pagefile location, try it both ways to find out which one is better for you.
Many factors affect it like how much RAM you have, what applications, and how many of them, you run, How fast each one of your hard drives is.

For example, if you have 1GB of RAM and you only play games, you may not notice any improvement by moving the pagefile to another hard drive.
But, you may, if you run imaging programs, like Photoshop, that need a lot of RAM.

There is no one solution that fits all!

 

[beatle]

People used to recommend putting your swapfile in a separate partition (swap and nothing else) because it helped prevent fragmentation. Now Windows seems to be smart enough not to fragment it, at least in my experience, so there's no need to create a separate partition.

 

[Nothinman]

If you have two hard drives, the best place for the main pagefile is on the second hard drive on a dedicated partition (no file on the partition but pagefile).

Putting it on a seperate partition is a waste and if it's on the same drive as your data files you'll increase access time when accessing them because every time the pagefile is accessed it will have to seek all the way to the other partition.